The Girl Who Asked the Mountain

About this story

High in the altiplano, where the grass is short and the sky sits very close, a girl named Sumaq carries a question everywhere, turning it over like a stone in her pocket. One bright cold morning she laces her sandals and sets out to climb the great mountain and ask the apu, because the apu is older than the rock and the mountain knows everything. Her grandmother has told her to stay where the woodsmoke can find her. She goes anyway, with her llama walking soft and slow beside her, up past the last houses and the last green fields, into air so thin and shining she can almost press her palm flat against the sky. Then she cups her hands and calls.

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High in the altiplano, where the grass is short and the sky sits very close, there lived a girl named Sumaq. She was not the tallest girl, or the quietest. She had a question, and she carried it everywhere, turning it over and over like a stone in her pocket.

High above the red roofs, a glossy black raven turned a slow circle, and watched her the way you watch someone you have been waiting for.

One bright cold morning, Sumaq laced her sandals tight. "I will climb the great mountain," she said, "and ask the apu. The apu is older than the rock. Older than my grandmother's grandmother. The mountain knows everything. The mountain will answer me."

Her grandmother had told her to stay where the woodsmoke could find her. But the question was so heavy, and the mountain stood so tall against the blue. So she kissed her grandmother's hands, and she went.

Her llama came along, soft and slow, with eyes like wet brown stones. And trotting behind them both came Scout, the scruffy brown dog, his tail a small flag, herding them up the path the way he herded everything home.

They climbed past the last houses. They climbed past the last green fields of potatoes and quinoa. The air grew thin and shining, and Sumaq's breath came quick, and the whole wide world fell away below her sandals.

She stopped to look. The village was a handful of little roofs, far and small and golden. The sky was so near she felt she could press her palm flat against it. Sumaq laughed out loud. She had never been so high, or so full of wonder.

Then she cupped her hands and called. "Apu, I have a question." A wind came down the slope, cold and clean. It pushed the grass flat and went on. The mountain said nothing at all.

So the air went white. A cold mist swallowed the slope, and the wind turned mean, flinging snow that stung her cheeks. Sumaq could not see the path. She could not see the village. She could not see her own two hands.

And in the white, a voice came chattering, quick and bright as a magpie. "Poor cold girl," it whispered. "Why wait on a mountain that will not speak? I have your answer. I have all the answers. Come, follow my noise, and I will give you an easy one right now."

The chattering voice was warm and fast and full of promises. Sumaq wanted, so badly, to believe it. But the llama pressed close against her side, and Scout stood square in front of her, and a low growl rose along his back, and he would not let her step toward the noise.

The chattering thinned, and frayed, and blew away down the slope. The white mist lifted. The voice had filled the silence with quick easy lies, and quick easy lies are not the same as an answer. Sumaq was shaking, but she had not followed it.

She called the mountain again, louder. Her voice went out across the empty slope and came back smaller. "Apu, please. I climbed all this way." The mountain only stood there, white at the top, patient as the morning. It would not answer.

Sumaq sat down in the cold grass. She was tired, and a little angry, and so far from the lamp in her grandmother's window. The question still sat heavy in her pocket. Her eyes filled, and she wept. "I came so far," she said. "And the mountain will not even speak to me."

The story goes on in the video.